Multi-Domain Common Operational Picture Lessons from the Design of Commercial User Interface (original) (raw)

2021, European Security and Defense

Visualizing battle in multiple domains is challenging. To conduct cross-domain maneuver, and synchronize the effects in multiple domains, military leaders must have a multi-domain Common Operational Picture (COP). (US Army photo, Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems) Multi-domain operations across the five domains (land, sea, air, cyber, and space) are not new, but new technologies are changing the methods of war. Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), microminiaturization of electrical components, and robotics are driving these changes. An Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT), similar to the commercial Internet of Things (IoT), but with deadlier effect, is emerging. War will be faster and deadlier than ever before. The fusion of networked sensors with projectiles, and the synchronization of the kill-web by AI, will strike targets in multiple domains at hyper-speeds. To act decisively in this complex environment, commanders must visualize the battlespace, see actions as they occur, predict possible effects, more rapidly than the enemy. Human decision-making rests primarily on pattern recognition. Commanders observe, orient, decide, and act (the OODA Loop) by recognizing the pattern the enemy has presented and rapidly applying a counter-pattern. If you can do this faster than your opponent, the enemy will appear to be acting in slow-motion. It is as if a boxer is landing four or five blows for every one blow from the adversary. Accelerating the OODA loop will require enhanced cognitive computer 1